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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 03/10/95 -- Vol. 13, No. 37
MEETINGS UPCOMING:
Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in Middletown 5T-415
Wednesdays at noon.
DATE TOPIC
03/29/95 Video: Science in STAR TREK
04/19/95 Book: LE MORTE D'ARTHUR by Thomas Malory
Outside events:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the second
Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call 201-933-2724 for
details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society meets on the third
Saturday of every month in Belleville; call 201-432-5965 for details.
However, the March meeting has been moved to the fourth Saturday, and
the April meeting *may* be moved to the fourth Saturday as well.
MT Chair: Mark Leeper MT 3F-434 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 908-957-5087 j.j.jetzt@att.com
HO Co-Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 908-949-7076 n.j.sauer@att.com
HO Co-Librarian: Lance Larsen HO 2C-318 908-949-4156 l.f.larsen@att.com
MT Librarian: Mark Leeper MT 3F-434 908-957-5619 m.r.leeper@att.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2D-536 908-957-6330 r.l.mitchell@att.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 1F-337 908-957-2070 e.c.leeper@att.com
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
1. This week I want to talk about something just a bit more serious
than usual. Well, perhaps not as serious as last week's editorial,
which hands down was the most serious editorial I have had in
recent years. But as editorials go, this is also one of my more
serious ones. And the fact that two serious editorials would come
so close together was just the luck of the draw, and even this one
is not as serious as last week's editorial. But it is serious.
I think I may have come up with a solution to an ancient mystery
today. I am afraid and this is not the most scholarly journal to
report solutions to ancient mysteries, but, hey, it's all I've got.
I cannot even cite you the source of the mystery, However, I have
THE MT VOID Page 2
heard that there is an account in someone's journal of his days in
Ancient Rome that captured my imagination when I first heard it
years ago, and only today has a likely explanation for what really
happened come to mind. See what you think.
In some Ancient Roman's journal is a passage to the effect of
something like the following: "An eagle landed on the walls of the
city today. To the surprise of the citizens the eagle could speak
and spoke to citizens for a length of time before flying off.
However, what the eagle had to say was not of sufficient interest
to be recorded here."
This incident has, I am assured, puzzled experts for some time and
since I heard of it, it has puzzled me. Of course there are a
couple of mysteries here. One is what actually happened, and the
other is the peculiar attitude of the journalist. Talking eagles
being a novelty and almost certainly a rarity in Rome, you would
think that it would be of interest to record whatever it was the
eagle had to say. Our journalist apparently found the eagle's
conversation to be so banal as to be not even worth the effort to
record. I have wondered about this strange passage for years--on
and off, of course.
I think that the solution to the mystery comes from Mexico. I have
been told that in Mexico it is the custom among common people not
to be really explicit about animal species. If an animal is
smaller than a certain size it is "el raton," the rat. A little
bigger and it is "el zorro," the fox. A mouse will be called a
rat; an opossum might be called a fox. The same thing might have
been true in Ancient Rome. It was, after all a very Eagle-centric,
even if not eagle-itarian society. Suppose they used the word
"eagle" for any large bird--say a parrot. Had it been a parrot
instead of an eagle, it might not be at all surprising that it
spoke to people. And frankly, though a parrot can speak its
conversational style is generally very limited, not to say also
incoherent. The sort of testimony one can get from a parrot might
hardly be worth the effort to transcribe into a journal.
I don't know if there were parrots in Imperial Rome, but that's a
minor detail. [-mrl]
===================================================================
2. Some of you have access to the World Wide Web and are interested
to find some science fiction sites. These are many and varied.
The following are some of the best URLs to visit. Apparently
people on the WWW tend to like science fiction. Each of these
sites has links to many other sites and it may well be that there
is overlap or that they link to each other. But let us herewith
move the MT VOID even further into the electronic age. Please free
THE MT VOID Page 3
to send me additional sites that are of general interest to our
readers and I can publish.
The Science Fiction Resource Guide
http://sundry.hsc.usc.edu/hazel/www/sf-resource.guide.html
This is huge and powerful guide to LOTS of stuff. It just goes on
and on and on.
Laurie Mann's Science Fiction and Fact Pages
http://www.lm.com/~lmann/hot/sf.html
Laurie is a familiar fan particularly to Massachusetts fandom.
She runs a fairly complete resource page.
Linkoping SF&F Archive
http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf_main.html
One of the best of European SF sites. It also has a link to the MT
VOID for Europe:
http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf-texts/MT_Void/
[-mrl]
===================================================================
3. I have been wondering for a long time just who Anita Price is.
She must be someone wonderful, the patron saint of working women.
All I know is that whenever I go to the grocery there always seems
to be a cashier calling out her name. [-mrl]
===================================================================
4. THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
Capsule: This is a moody Irish children's
fantasy written and directed by John Sayles. A
ten-year-old girl goes to live with her
fisherman grandfather's family and discovers
her family traditions tied in with mythical
selkies. The photography is moody, but the
story and the cold, wet landscapes are hard to
warm up to. Some nice animal photography also
sets the scene. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4)
The scene is an Irish fishing village in the late 1940s, and this
is the sort of story that might be told to children around the
hearth. Fiona (played by Jeni Courtney) goes to live with her
grandparents so she can get away from the city and so that her
father can devote his time to drinking. There, amid the gulls and
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the fish and the seals, she hears mysterious folktales of her
family history, especially the story that one of her relatives had
really been a selkie. A selkie, in Irish tradition, is a seal who
can turn into a human. The "dark ones" of her family are really
just showing more of their seal heritage. And there is the tale of
Fiona's own brother who was washed out to sea in a boat-shaped
cradle, but who some say is occasionally still seen. Fiona hears
the folk stories from her grandfather (Mile Lally) and other
members of her family--"superstition" her grandmother (Eileen
Colgan) calls the stories. But they send Fiona's imagination
racing and the somber, wet landscapes under what always seems an
overcast sky (even when it looks blue) only set the mood for the
mystical and the supernatural. Before she is done Fiona's own
experience will make for a new tale to join the others.
In Ireland this may well work as a family film, but it is a little
hard for American children to follow. The Irish-American co-
production is written and directed by John Sayles in a style very
different from his MATEWAN or his EIGHT MEN OUT or just about
anything else that Sayles has done. Sayles has taken as his source
Rosalie K. Fry's children's novel SECRET OF THE RON MOR SKERRY.
Indeed, in the United States some children will enjoy this film,
but the thick, sometimes impenetrable, Irish accents and the
generally somber tone and photography may make this a children's
film that can be appreciated only by adults.
Much of the interest value of the film is in its portrait of
fishing village life in Ireland. The simple hearthside diet of
fish and soup in the thatched houses, the hard work on the fishing
boats and on the shore, and the eternal gray skies combine to make
a portrait that is bleak, but well-observed. Sayles takes his time
telling his story as a combination of Fiona's experiences and a
mosaic of the stories told to Fiona. Apparently this structure is
hard on some children. Several of the children in our audience had
to have the plot details explained to them by parents who were
probably having some problems themselves, at least with the
accents.
Fiona is played by Jeni Courtney who seems already accomplished as
an actress in spite of her young age. Lally and Colgan are each
enjoyable to watch in each's own way. Veteran cinematographer
Haskell Wexler has managed some nice animal photography. Irish
music also helps to set the feel of the film. Not a bad film, but
the story is a little slow and unambitious. I give it a low +1 on
the -4 to +4 scale.
===================================================================
5. Boskone 32 (con report by Evelyn C. Leeper--part 2 of 4 parts)
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Bloopers and Bad Science on TV
Saturday, 12 N
Jeff Hecht (mod), Jeffrey A. Carver, Hal Clement,
Don Sakers, Melissa Scott, Earl Wajenberg
The panelists started out by giving a prime example of what the
panel was about: the introduction to BATTLESTAR GALACTICA in which
the characters are described as "looking for a star called Earth."
They said they did *not* want to discuss sound in space, which is
necessary for dramatic effect, and should be considered almost as
part of the music soundtrack.
One way of looking at this is to follow the approach that George
MacDonald Fraser used in his HOLLYWOOD HISTORY OF THE WORLD:
determine if the telling is true to the spirit of the times rather
than to the "objective" truth. As he says (page xv), "Provided
[the screenwriter] does not break faith with the spirit of history
by wilful misrepresentation or hatchet job, he may take liberties
with the letter--but he should take as few as possible." (This, by
the way, is a book I highly recommend to fans of movies--or of
history.)
Of course, people are less forgiving of shock waves in space--or at
least feel that if there are shock waves, all those spaceships
should have seat belts. Regarding all those little sparkles you
see when you see a shot of a spaceship traveling in space, someone
opined that these are really the "missing matter" in the universe.
And when asked, "What is subspace?" Wajenberg replied, "Subspace is
a convenient plot device."
Scott said what really annoyed her was the depiction of scientists
(and how science is done) in films. As she said, "You know someone
is a scientist because they stare at something for a while." (And,
I would add, usually wear a white coat while doing it.) But Scott
also said that you have to ask yourself if the story is about
science, or about people in a future society, and allow more leeway
in the latter. Later in the panel, some good movies (not
television) about science were mentioned: THE MAN IN THE WHITE
SUIT, DAM BUSTERS, and NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY.
Much of the panel was about STAR TREK, in part because when you
talk about science fiction on television, the one program that
serves as a lingua franca for fans is STAR TREK. The panelists
primary objection to science on STAR TREK (a.k.a. Treknobabble) was
that it had no consistency. This week the transporter could be
used to cure disease; next week that is completely forgotten. (As
someone expressed it, "STAR TREK resets its science every week.")
And the show has fallen into what is referred to as the "particle-
of-the-week" syndrome. But the writers' knowledge of even basic
science is faulty. Sakers said that someone should explain DNA to
the STAR TREK writers, who talk about "the DNA of his molecules"
THE MT VOID Page 6
and even have humans "regressing down the evolutionary chain" to
become spiders! The recent description of an event horizon as "a
force field that surrounds a star" also came under attack. Scott
said that when she worked on a "Deep Space 9" novel, she found that
the producers, apparently taking Emerson's comment about a foolish
consistency to heart, describe the power conduits as extremely
reliable on one page of the series "Bible" and extremely unreliable
on another.
Carver said we should not be too hard on the bloopers in science in
STAR TREK, because the producers and writers "have no better
understanding of, say, religion than they have of science."
When it comes to violating scientific principles, it is not just
science fiction that does it. Roadrunner cartoons did it all the
time, and action movies and television shows do it as well, with
cars bursting into flame every time they crash into something,
except when driven by the hero, in which case no matter how violent
the crash, they can still be driven away, and so forth.
Speaking of bursting into flames, Wajenberg said, "Someone has
decided that the technology of the 24th Century depends on the
magnesium transistor."
Basically, the panelists felt that an author should be allowed to
break one (scientific) rule, but that the story should be *about*
breaking the rule. In other words, if you postulate instantaneous
matter transmission, your story should be about the consequences of
that, not about your main character's angst over whether to go to
Harvard or Yale.
The panelists seemed quite critical of small slips, such as SPACE:
1999's reference to "the dark side of the moon." Yet I noted that
when Larry Niven had the Earth rotating backwards in the first
chapter of the first edition of RINGWORLD, fans may have found it
amusing, but did not anathemize him for it. (And the fact that MIT
students with Cray computers eventually proved that Ringworld as
described was unstable passed with nary a flicker.)
I asked about other television shows. LOST IN SPACE was considered
one of the major contributors to the "Blooper Hall of Fame,"
consistently confusing solar systems with galaxies and so forth.
Of TIME TUNNEL (one of my favorite shows when it was on) Sakers
said, "The good thing about TIME TUNNEL was that its scientific
inaccuracies were more than overwhelmed by its historical
inaccuracies." VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and LAND OF THE
GIANTS were equally laughable. No one had anything critical to say
about the science in BABYLON 5, although Scott (who has purple and
yellow layered hair) said that the producers seemed to like to
define their aliens by their funny hair. (I do not think this
statement was intended ironically.) The anthology series (TWILIGHT
THE MT VOID Page 7
ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS) were dismissed as "not really science
fiction," as was QUANTUM LEAP. (Do not ask me to explain this.)
Wajenberg reminded the audience that while we scoff at them,
"Producers have their artistic pride, but it is a different art."
They are trying to make something that works dramatically, and it
is difficult to transmit information in a drama.
Essential Films for the SF Fan
Saturday, 1 PM
Mark R. Leeper (mod), Craig Shaw Gardner,
Daniel Kimmel, Jim Mann
As usual, Leeper produced a hand-out for this, and therefore much
of the hour was spent adding films to (and deleting films from)
that list. It is included with comments in Appendix 1, but the
films were (in chronological order):
A TRIP TO THE MOON
METROPOLIS
THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
KING KONG
ISLAND OF LOST SOULS
THINGS TO COME*
DESTINATION MOON
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS*
GOJIRA
THIS ISLAND EARTH
THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
FORBIDDEN PLANET
UNEARTHLY STRANGER*
QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH)*
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN
COLOSSUS (THE FORBIN PROJECT)
PHASE IV*
STAR WARS*
BRAINSTORM*
BLADERUNNER*
(Asterisked films are the ten "basic" ones.)
Kimmel and Mann had seen all the films except for UNEARTHLY
STRANGER, which is a very difficult film to find.
Kimmel had a whole list of films that he said he would add (without
saying what he would drop):
INVADERS OF MARS (1953),
THEM!,
THE MT VOID Page 8
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN,
THE TIME MACHINE,
SECONDS,
FAHRENHEIT 451
PLANET OF THE APES,
SOYLENT GREEN,
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978),
E.T.,
BRAZIL,
THE FLY (1986), AND
TOTAL RECALL.
(This is thirteen films, over half the list, so what films from
Leeper's list is would drop is a no-trivial issue.) Kimmel later
mentioned a certain fondness for FANTASTIC VOYAGE and also the
rather obscure YEUX SANS VISAGE.
Gardner said that one omission from both lists seemed to be
Japanese animation, and suggested AKIRA. But Kimmel did not think
that Japanese animation has broken out of its ghetto, and he is
still waiting for that "breakthrough" film. For an animated
science fiction film, the French FANTASTIC PLANET was suggested.
Mann said that when he drew up his list, he took "SF" to include
fantasy, so he would add such films as THE MUMMY (1932) and SEVEN
FACES OF DR. LAO, and he has a personal preference for THE EMPIRE
STRIKES BACK over STAR WARS.
Gardner pointed out that there were no Ray Harryhausen films
mentioned, and that EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS would be a
reasonable addition from a science fiction point of view.
Mann felt that perhaps either ALIEN or ALIENS should be included
(or "some other James Cameron film," though Cameron did not direct
ALIEN--Ridley Scott did). The panelists seemed to agree that films
such as ALIEN and OUTLAND did change the depiction of space as
clean and glorious to just another place to work.
The panelists all agreed that CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND
was *not* on their lists, that JURASSIC PARK was too recent to
judge, and that whatever ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW was, it was not
something they wanted to discuss.
From the audience, Kate Pott asked about foreign films, of which
she mentioned SOLARIS and ALPHAVILLE, to which Kimmel added LA
JETEE, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and ORPHEUS, as well as the Czech
animated films THE FABULOUS ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN and THE
FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE.
Gardner added ROAD WARRIOR, STALKER, and some Hong Kong fantasy
film (A CHINESE GHOST STORY, ZU FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, or WICKED
THE MT VOID Page 9
CITY, which he described as being like "Philip K. Dick directed by
David Lynch").
In the made-for-television arena, Mann mentioned the PBS version of
LATHE OF HEAVEN and the BBC version of THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS.
(This reminded Kimmel that VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED had not been
listed. His list of twenty-five must be up around fifty by now.)
Leeper recommended PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN and DARK
INTRUDER (the latter of which was made for television).
Kimmel's suggestion of WILD IN THE STREETS led Leeper to mention
PRIVILEGE and THE WAR GAME. I would add to those THE MANCHURIAN
CANDIDATE, and the mention that the panelists should include at
least one of the post-holocaust films such as TESTAMENT and THE DAY
AFTER leads me to pick THREADS as the best of that group.
Someone in the audience asked for a list of the worst films, which
prompted Leeper to say this was like asking for the hottest cold
day in that this would be a list of really bad films that were
still good enough to be released. Someone said that if nothing
else, "Mystery Science Theater 3000" has proven that PLAN 9 FROM
OUTER SPACE is far from the worst film ever made. (Leeper's choice
of worst film he has ever seen is THE CREEPING TERROR.)
Is Research Necessary for SF&F?
Saturday, 2 PM
Hal Clement (mod), Ellen Kushner, James D. Macdonald,
Delia Sherman, Joan D. Vinge
Clement started this panel by reminding us that the title was, "Is
research necessary for science fiction and fantasy?" then saying,
"Yes, and thank you for coming." This did not appear to satisfy
the audience, so Clement said he could elaborate: "Yes for science
fiction, and who cares for fantasy?"
However, this did not go over well with the fantasists (as Clement
had predicted), and the panel decided they had to answer the
question at greater length.
Kushner said she had been thinking about the topic and had come to
the conclusion that "those who do, and who do believe in, research
should do less and those who don't should do more." Macdonald
asked, "How do you research faster-than-light travel in a distant
galaxy?" Clement extended this to the general question of "What
constitutes research?" and how much should one do. Sherman says
the only way she can answer that is by saying that the author needs
to match the research to the task at hand: one should not do as
much research for a five-thousand-word short story as for a four-
hundred-page novel. Clement later noted that the real problem was
often that "you don't know what you don't know."
THE MT VOID Page 10
Kushner said that before researching something, the author needs to
ask who s/he is trying to satisfy. If one is writing for a hard
science audience, one needs to do more research for a matter
transmitter than if it is just a small part of a novel where the
main plot is about social transitions under a hierarchical
government.
In this regard, Clement said that members of the MIT Science
Fiction Society analyzed the planet in MISSION OF GRAVITY and
proved Clement got the shape all wrong. Clement said that he
eventually decided that the best approach was just to say to
himself, "Well, I did write the book to give people pleasure."
Sherman said that the problem with doing too much research is that
there comes a point when "you find that the details are taking over
the tapestry."
In any case, the panelists agreed that even if you do not do a lot
of research, you should at least avoid internal inconsistencies.
(Sounds like good advice for the "Star Trek" producers as discussed
in the panels on "Bloopers and Bad Science on TV.") Macdonald
asked, "How many copy editors does it take to change a life bulb?"
and then answered, "You said 27 on page 4 and 35 on page 60; which
did you mean?"
Kushner said that we might be taking too narrow a view of research,
and said, "Your entire life is and should be research." (This is
more applicable to social science fiction than to the sort of thing
that Clement writes, of course.) But Kushner also was in favor of
traditional research, which she said made life easier. "If you
look it up, you don't have to make it up."
Clement asked what the panelists do when they discover halfway
through the story that one of their basic assumptions is discovered
to be wrong. Sherman says since her assumptions are generally
historical she just makes it alternate history. The other
panelists did not have any real answers, probably because their
styles of writing do not require the rigorous physical assumptions
that Clement's does. Clement said that his approach was to come up
with a way to make his assumptions true by changing some of the
variables that would not affect his story.
The one thing that was clear from this panel was that Clement
writes from a very different set of premises and with a very
different purpose than most other authors. To Clement, the purpose
of a story is the scientific extrapolation. While there is nothing
wrong with this, it does mean that a panel with Clement and other
people on it is somewhat bifurcated. Given this, a more neutral
moderator might be a good idea.
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Neglected Authors: Murray Leinster
Saturday, 4 PM
Mark Olson (mod), Hal Clement, Joe Rico
Let's start with the basics: Murray Leinster's real name was
William Fitzgerald Jenkins, and he pronounced his pseudonym
"lenster" (in the Irish fashion). Born in 1896, he sold his first
story, "The Runaway Skyscraper," in 1919, and wrote up until the
time of his death in 1975. Much of what he wrote was what has been
called "gaslight science fiction" (although that term conjures up
images of the 1890s rather than the 1920s). Many of his stories
deal with worldwide catastrophes (e.g., "Mad Planet"). While he
wrote some novels, they are generally conceded to be inferior to
his short fiction, where he broke ground with stories such as
"Sidewise in Time" (the first parallel worlds story, written in
1935), "A Logic Named Joe" (the first Net story, written in 1949),
and "First Contact" (the first first contact story, written in
1945).
Though the panelists said that at times Leinster tended toward
"unnecessary narration" (Olson added that he relied too much on the
omniscient narrator), he was not an unsophisticated author. In "A
Logic Named Joe," for example, he examines the sociological impact
of his premises. And he does not resort to cardboard villainous
aliens. Even when the aliens are villainous, they are villainous
for a reason (e.g., "Proximi Centauri"). But the panelists agreed
that Leinster should be read for his ideas, not his style.
Much of the hour consisted of a listing and description of
Leinster's stories, without very much background. He did also
write Westerns, and worked in Hollywood (where the panel claimed he
invented the process of front projection).
Much of his short fiction was published in book form in now out-
of-print collections such as OPERATION: OUTER SPACE and THE BEST OF
MURRAY LEINSTER. In fact, there were two different books with this
latter title, one British and one American. It was also mentioned
that much of his science fiction was published in England under his
real name, which sounded more English than the Irish-inspired
Leinster. THE PLANET EXPLORER (a.k.a. COLONIAL SURVEY) was
described as a collection of his "Colonial Survey" and "Med" series
stories, though an audience member said that Nicholls and Clute
list it as a novel. (Peter Nicholls and John Clute included only
authors who had written novels in their ENCYCLOPEDIA, so there may
be an unconscious prejudice here.) It was for one of the "Colonial
Survey" stories, "Exploration Team," that Leinster won his only
Hugo (Best Novelette, 1956).
Other sources for Leinster stories are the retrospective "Year's
Best" series edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg. Someone
added that those books make a very good overview to the science
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fiction of the period, with the only major omissions being Bradbury
and Heinlein. He did not explain why Bradbury was missing, but
apparently Heinlein demanded such a high percentage of the
royalties that there would have been hardly anything left for the
rest of the authors. This gave me an image of a future in which
the only knowledge of the science fiction of this period was a set
of these books, and as a result Heinlein was totally forgotten. In
any case, Leinster's best work was from 1945 to 1950, so people
should look for those particular volumes in their used bookstores.
Clement, who had met Leinster, described him as "just a nice guy,
easy to talk to on just about any subject."
In part this panel was an advertisement for (or suggested by)
NESFA's work on a collection of Leinster's short fiction, including
some that have never been previously collected before.
Leinster's bibliography in Donald H. Tuck's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE
FICTION AND FANTASY runs two and a half double-column pages and
only goes up to 1968; it is not included here.
[to be continued] [-ecl]
===================================================================
6. 25 Important Science Fiction Films (Appendix 1 to the Boskone
Con Report (by Mark R. Leeper (mark.leeper@att.com))
The BOSKONE Science Fiction Convention has asked me to moderate a
panel on the essential science fiction films--whatever that means.
This is my list of the 25 and 10 and 1 most important science
fiction films. Some are here because I consider them to be great,
but may not be well known. Others may not be of what I consider
the highest quality, but are here because they have been highly
influential. My top 10 are prefaced by asterisks. The film I
consider number 1 is QUATERMASS AND THE PIT. In each case I have
given a phrase or two to explain why it made this list. I don't
promise that I wouldn't come up with a different list if asked
again. I have limited myself to films over 10 years old, but
frankly I don't think that made any difference.
I. Silent
A. A TRIP TO THE MOON--Birth of SF film
B. METROPOLIS--Visual impact
II. 30s
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A. THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN--Creative though only fringe SF
B. * KING KONG--Big step forward in SPFX
C. ISLAND OF LOST SOULS--Literate interpretation of Wells
straddling Gothic and Realistic approaches
D. * THINGS TO COME--Vision of future, spectacle
III. 40s--nothing major
IV. 50s
A. DESTINATION MOON--Birth of the 50s cycle
B. THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD--Solid thriller, good acting
C. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL--Message that people responded to
D. THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT--Serious social comment wrapped in
amusing comedy
E. * THE WAR OF THE WORLDS--Great SPFX, real shocker
F. GOJIRA--Spawned Japanese SF market and series, exploration of
post-nuclear trauma
G. THIS ISLAND EARTH--First real presentation of interstellar
warfare, somewhat mechanical but still has real sense of wonder
H. THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS--Great piece of political
paranoia, powerful allegory (though it is not clear if anti-
McCarthy or anti-Communist)
I. * FORBIDDEN PLANET--Highly influential (inspiration for Star
Trek), powerful images, first film set totally off Earth (?)
V. 60s
A. * UNEARTHLY STRANGER--Powerful, dramatic use of cinema, good SF
without SPFX
B. * QUATERMASS AND THE PIT--(U.S. title: FIVE MILLION YEARS TO
EARTH) Finest idea SF film I can name
C. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY--Highly influential (though story-value is
overrated)
VI. 70s
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A. THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN--Well-researched and current technology
worked into the plot of a film
B. COLOSSUS--(a.k.a. THE FORBIN PROJECT) Technological age updating
of Frankenstein
C. * PHASE IV--Strong tale of two really alien intelligences
warring, humans and ants. Extremely intelligent use of science
fiction
D. * STAR WARS--A huge leap in representation of imaginative images
on the screen. One of the most influential films ever made, it
changed how the film industry sees its business
VII. 80s
A. * BRAINSTORM--Very believable view of the research, very
believable view of how the right tool can really transform a
society. It breaks down in the last half-hour, probably because
of notorious difficulties in production, but this is a film that
really could have dozens of fascinating sequels.
B. * BLADERUNNER--Terrific set design (though story is over-rated)
Mark Leeper
MT 3F-434 908-957-5619
m.r.leeper@att.com
When people are free to do as they please, they usually
imitate each other.
--Eric Hoffer